Behavioural Type Affects Space Use in a Wild Population of Crows (Corvus corone)

Abstract

While personality‐dependent dispersal is well studied, local space use has received surprisingly little attention in this context, despite the multiple consequences on survival and fitness. Regarding the coping style of individuals, recent studies on personality‐dependent space use within a habitat indicate that ‘proactive’ individuals are wider ranging than ‘reactive’ ones. However, such studies are still scarce and cover limited taxonomic diversity, and thus, more research is needed to explore whether this pattern generalises across species. We examined the link between coping style and space use in a population of crows (Corvus corone) freely inhabiting the urban zoo of Vienna, Austria. We used a binary docility rating (struggle during handling vs. no struggle) and a tonic immobility test to quantify individual coping style. Individual space use was quantified as the number of different sites at which each crow was observed, and we controlled for different number of sightings per individual by creating a space use index. Only the binary docility rating showed repeatability over time, and significantly predicted space use. In contrast to previous studies, we found that reactive crows (no struggle during handling) showed wider ranging space use within the study site than proactive individuals (who struggled during handling). The discrepancy from previous results suggests that the relationship between behavioural type and space use may vary between species, potentially reflecting differences in socioecology.

Counting crows: population structure and group size variation in an urban population of crows

“…The study area is ideal for conducting behavioral observations on group formation and dynamics as the crows use several parts of the zoo for foraging on a wide variety of food (Miller et al 2014; Deventer et al 2016), are easy to spot and are well habituated to human presence. Vienna lies within a hybrid overlapping zone with presence of both carrion and hooded crows, which as classed as subspecies ( Corvus corone corone and Corvus corone cornix , von Blotzheim 1993; de Knijff 2014) and regularly interbreed (Randler 2008).…”

Crows (Corvus corone ssp.) check contingency in a mirror yet fail the mirror-mark test.

“…Therefore, the present study examined the reaction to mirror image stimulation of carrion and hooded crows (form this point forth referred to as crows) which are food-caching birds (de Kort & Clayton, 2006; Goodwin, 1986), capable of individual recognition (Braun, 2013), and which live in complex fission–fusion societies (Deventer et al, 2016). As members of the corvid family they possess a high encephalization index (Emery, 2006) and perform well in various cognitive tasks (Balakhonov & Rose, 2017; Hoffmann, Rüttler, & Nieder, 2011; Smirnova, Lazareva, & Zorina, 2003; Smirnova, Zorina, Obozova, & Wasserman, 2015).…”

Corvids in Urban Environments: A Systematic Global Literature Review

“…In addition, several studies demonstrated that corvids can depend on social cues to learn about dangers in a given area and that they are able to communicate this information to each other [ 65 , 75 , 120 ]. An extreme case of habituation to human presence has been observed in a Carrion Crow captured in Vienna Zoo, which did not show any sign of struggle during handling by researchers [ 121 ]. Finally, studies based on measurements of crows’ flight initiation distance upon human approach have indicated that escape distances are considerably shorter in urban than in non-urban areas in many corvid species [ 122 , 123 ].…”